Ōe Kenzaburō reading the first paragraph of his novel Kojinteki-na taiken …

Ōe Kenzaburō, (born January 31, 1935, Ehime prefecture, Shikoku, Japan) Japanese novelist whose works express the disillusionment and rebellion of his post-World War II generation. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.

Ōe Kenzaburō, 2006.

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Ōe came from a family of wealthy landowners, who lost most of their property with the occupation-imposed land reform following the war. He entered the University of Tokyo in 1954, graduating in 1959, and the brilliance of his writing while he was still a student caused him to be hailed the most promising young writer since Mishima Yukio.

Ōe first attracted attention on the literary scene with Shisha no ogori (1957; Lavish Are the Dead), published in the magazine Bungakukai. His literary output was, however, uneven. His first novel, Memushiri kouchi (1958; Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids), was highly praised, and he won a major literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, for Shiiku (1958; The Catch). But his second novel, Warera no jidai (1959; “Our Age”), was poorly received, as his contemporaries felt that Ōe was becoming increasingly preoccupied with social and political criticism.

Ōe became deeply involved in the politics of the New Left. The murder in 1960 of Chairman Asanuma Inejirō of the Japanese Socialist Party by a right-wing youth inspired Ōe to write two short stories in 1961, “Sebuntin” (“Seventeen”) and “Seiji shōnen shisu,” the latter of which drew heavy criticism from right-wing organizations.

Married in 1960, Ōe entered a further stage of development in his writing when his son was born in 1963 with an abnormality of the skull. This event inspired his finest novel, Kojinteki-na taiken (1964; A Personal Matter), a darkly humorous account of a new father’s struggle to accept the birth of his brain-damaged child. A visit to Hiroshima resulted in the work Hiroshima nōto (1965; Hiroshima Notes), which deals with the survivors of the atomic bombing of that city. In the early 1970s Ōe’s writing, particularly his essays, reflected a growing concern for power politics in the nuclear age and with questions involving the developing world.

Ōe continued to investigate the problems of characters who feel alienated from establishment conformity and the materialism of postwar Japan’s consumer-oriented society. Among his later works were the novel Man’en gannen no futtōbōru (1967; The Silent Cry), a collection of short fiction entitled Warera no kyōki o ikinobiru michi o oshieyo (1969; Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness), and the novels Pinchi rannā chōsho (1976; The Pinch Runner Memorandum) and Dōjidai gēmu (1979; “Coeval Games”).

The novel Atarashii hito yo meza meyo (1983; Rise Up O Young Men of the New Age!) is distinguished by a highly sophisticated literary technique and by the author’s frankness in personal confession; it concerns the growing up of a mentally retarded boy and the tension and anxiety he arouses in his family. Ōe’s Jinsei no shinseki (1989; An Echo of Heaven) uses the religious ideology of the American writer Flannery O’Connor as a means to explore the suffering and possible salvation of a woman beset by a number of personal tragedies. Chenjiringu (2000; The Changeling) tells the story of a writer who relives his personal history, often in a dreamlike and surreal manner, after he receives a collection of audiotapes from an estranged friend who appears to have recorded his own suicide.

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Ōe Kenzaburō achieved fame early in life, winning a major literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, in 1958, when he was 23. His early works were mainly set in the remote valley on the island of Shikoku where he was born and raised, and he returned to this setting in some later works, finding in it an essential key to his life. In 1994 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature, the...

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(born 1935). One of Japan’s preeminent post-World War II writers, Oe Kenzaburo won the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature. He wrote many popular short stories and novels, including The Silent Cry and A Personal Matter, a novel based on Oe’s own experiences in dealing with the birth of a mentally impaired son.